Doctors themselves have moved to criticise the divisive choice of phrase - and its effect on future negotiation.

Dr Yassir Iqbal, a doctor in cardiothoracic surgery at University Hospitals of North Midlands, told HuffPost UK: "The health secretary believes doctors who are concerned about the potential new employment contract as "militants".

"How can the BMA sit down at the negotiating table when the health secretary is on a different wavelength?"

And other doctors have taken to Twitter to criticise Hunt.

@Jeremy_Hunt Thank you for insulting my profession and denigrating us further .I look forward to the moment Cameron accepts your resignation

Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, told The Huffington Post: "Instead of provoking a fight with junior doctors, Jeremy Hunt should be getting back around the negotiating table and coming to an agreement.

"The suggestion that the very people keeping our NHS going are militant is offensive and ridiculous.

"I haven’t met a single junior doctor who wants to take industrial action, but they feel like they’ve been forced into a corner. If there is industrial action causing inconvenience to patients, then the only person responsible will be Jeremy Hunt."

The body which represents doctors in negotiations, the British Medical Association, said: “Junior doctors feel like they have been left with no option to resist the imposition of a contract that is bad for patients, junior doctors and the NHS.

"The BMA has said repeatedly that it wants to reach a negotiated agreement with the government – that remains our goal. We have been consistent and clear about what is needed to get back around the negotiating table, but this has so far fallen on deaf ears.

"Perhaps this should be the government’s focus rather than attacking junior doctors who believe these proposals would be bad for patient care and the NHS.”

6 Things To Know About Junior Doctor's Contract Changes

1Who are junior doctors?

Stuart Gleave via Getty Images

Junior doctors are those doctors who have graduated from medical school but who are yet to qualify as either a consultant or general practitioner.

- Proper recognition of unsocial hours as premium time
- No disadvantage for those working unsocial hours compared to current system
- No disadvantage for those working less than full time and taking parental leave compared to the current system
- Pay for all work done
- Proper hours safeguards protecting patients and their doctors

The contract proposed by the Government rides roughshod over the best interests of doctors, of patients and of the NHS as a whole. Junior doctors have made it clear that they are not prepared to accept a contract that is unfair and unsafe."

5Will they get it?

Stuart Gleave via Getty Images

Negotiations are currently at an impasse, with both NHS Employers, which acts on behalf of government, and representatives of junior doctors refusing to budge on the threat of imposition.

A staged introduction of the new changes could take effect whereby those joining the profession are subject to the new conditions.

Jeremy Hunt is likely to move forward in a way which brings junior doctors back around the negotiating table.

6And what if they don't?

shutterstock

But there are signs of what will happen should Mr Hunt refuse to yield to doctors' demands.

Members of his own party have highlighted cases of doctors emigrating from the UK to work as doctors elsewhere. Dr Sarah Wollaston, now a Tory MP and chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, says that her own daughter and eight of her doctor friends have left the UK for Australia.

And it doesn't look like they'll be alone in leaving Britain. The General Medical Council has received more applications for a Certificate of Currently Professional Status so far this year as it did in the whole of 2014. The Certificate is needed if doctors wish to practice medicine abroad.

In 2014, the GMC issued 4925 certificates. So far this year it has issued 7468, its latest figures reveal.